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"Yes." She mutters another number over her shoulder, and her ghost writes it down. "This is for another dress, one that is shorter. A little dress that insists on a bit of fun." She looks at me over the top of her glasses and winks. "Every woman should own one dress her mother would not approve of."

"My mother's dead."

It comes out before I can stop it, flat and stupid, and I want to swallow my tongue.

But Irina doesn't flinch. She simply gives me a quick nod.

"Then she will not approve from very far away," she says. "Even better. More commute for the disapproval."

I can’t help it, I laugh.

Because how is this my life?

"Okay. I’m sold. Give me the fun dress."

"Of course it is sold. I am very good." She moves on. “Now for the wedding dress…”

Right. The wedding.

The one that didn’t exist until last night.

"I haven't really thought about⁠—"

"Good. Do not think. Thinking ruins more dresses than weather." She steps close, lifts my chin with one finger, and turns my face left, then right. "It will be simple," she announces. "Elegant. No fuss. Your beauty will do the heavy lifting. The dress is just frosting on an already deliciously baked cake. It is decided. We are done."

And just like that, the storm reverses, and Irina and her ghost move toward the elevator.

Irina pauses at the doors and looks back at me over her shoulder.

"I shall make you a beautiful wedding dress," she says. "You will have it by six o’clock tonight."

Without another word, she disappears into the elevator and the doors close behind her.

12

DANTE

In my office above the casino floor, I stare at my laptop screen on my desk.

I've spent the last four hours staring at photographs of Sunny Meadows and at the dossier my private investigator, Pete Salerno, compiled for me.

I’m trying to figure her out. Who she is. What makes her tick.

I click through the information again. Pete is thorough. He's ex-FBI and has a talent for digging into people’s pasts and coming up with the goods.

Sunny Meadows. Twenty-six. Only child. Grew up here in the city with her mother, a schoolteacher, and her father, an accountant from whom my casino contracts accountancy work.

In high school, she was on the honor roll, served on the yearbook committee, and was voted "Most Likely to Make Everyone Smile."

I stare at the line.

Most Likely to Make Everyone Smile.

And I put a gun to her father's head.

I read it again and fight the regret it evokes.

I take a sip of scotch and keep reading.